Title: Affection Multiplier App: The Boyfriend
By: BreaktheBar
Chapter 22
“I deserved it,” Cassidy said, quickly standing up and pulling Terra into the room and shutting the door.
Terra was obviously confused and hesitant about getting dragged into things, but also concerned as she looked over at me on the bed. “What the fuck is going on?” she asked again.
“Tell her,” Cattie said to Cassidy.
“Early in our relationship I cheated on Robbie hundreds of times with other girls,” Cassidy said, trying to keep her voice steady but failing as she sobbed at the word ‘hundreds.’ As she continued her words picked up speed as she tried to get it all out. “I told him on the way here, and we came to an agreement and I thought everything was going to be alright but all of a sudden he came down here and we found him curled up in the bathroom and Cattie says he’s in shock and it’s all my fault and I’m fucking awful and I don’t deserve him or anyone and I hate myself and he should hate me too but he doesn’t and I don’t know what to doooo…” She broke down into sobbing again. “I tried so hard to make it up to him,” she said between her chest heaving. “But I had to tell him before we got married.”
“Jesus fuck,” Cattie said. “You told him today!?”
Cassidy just nodded.
“Well now I get the slap,” Terra said, still wide-eyed and trying to figure out her bearings in the conversation.
“Cassidy, you told Robbie today?” Cattie repeated. “Of course he’s not fucking OK. You ripped his heart out and immediately brought him somewhere he couldn’t show his emotions and had to hide everything inside. He bottled it up for you, to spare you. And you asked him to do things that he’s probably only fantasized about—flirt with other girls. Sleep with other girls. All while he’s trying to process you doing that behind his back. Do you not realize how fucked that is?”
“Yes!” Cassidy yelled, then punched the wall of the cabin. “Fuck!” she shouted in pain, but even while she held her hand she turned back to the other two girls. “I had to tell him. I thought starting here would be a good idea because you told me how horny a bunch of the single girls got last year. I thought giving him a kickstart to sleeping with other women here, surrounded by beautiful women, was part of my apology. And I kept wanting to tell him, but I was terrified, and then it was this morning and he was packing the stuff in the truck, and I couldn’t tell him, and then we were driving out of Vegas and I couldn’t tell him, and then we were in the middle of the desert and I was out of time and I told him and it was horrible but he didn’t hate me. He didn’t turn us around. He wouldn’t hit me.”
Cattie closed her eyes and took deep breaths, clearly still angry with her friend, but instead of saying anything she came over to me on the bed and sat down, stroking my hair. I still didn’t feel like I was in my own body, couldn’t respond. Couldn’t tell her it was true, that I’d accepted it. I wasn’t feeling much of anything.
“Robbie needs rest, and water and food,” Cattie said calmly. “Terra, could you go grab some water from the fridge, and a burger from upstairs? Just plain. And please don’t tell anyone what’s going on.”
“I won’t,” Terra nodded, then looked at Cassidy. “Every relationship has its problems. This is a big one, but no one deserves their dirty laundry getting aired out.”
She left, and Cassidy closed the door behind her and then collapsed to the floor on her knees. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
Cattie was crying now, I realized. Thick tears on her cheeks, dark with mascara and eyeliner from her gothy look.
“Robbie’s going to be OK,” she said quietly. “And he’s going to forgive you eventually. I could see it on his face when he told me just that little bit upstairs. He still loves you, Cass. But you really fucked up, and giving him sexual freedom to explore isn’t going to fix it. My mom offered that to my dad when they were fighting, you know? He could have affairs, and tell her about them or not. He could fuck around as much as he wanted. But you know what he told me?”
“What?” Cassidy asked.
“He never did,” Cattie said. “Even when they were at their worst, he never did because he was still thinking of the woman he’d loved and couldn’t hurt her that deeply, even if she wasn’t there anymore. And that’s the thing, Cass. You’re not the same woman Robbie loved anymore. Not to him. You’re a different person. One with a hell of a lot of baggage he didn’t know about, directly hung around his shoulders.”
“I tried,” Cassidy said. “I tried for so long to try and make it up to him.”
“But you still did it,” Cattie said. “I love my Mom, but she’ll always be a Cheater to me. She’ll always be the woman who went behind my Dad’s back without a thought about what it would do to him or me. For sex. Robbie’s still going to love you, but it’s not going to be the same. He will question everything you do for a long time, if he ever stops. He’ll wonder if every friend you make is the next person you’ll sleep with and re-open this wound. Every time you look at your phone and it’s not him texting or calling. And you’re going to need to live with that, and not hold it against him or resent him for any of the feelings he has.”
“I won’t,” Cassidy said, crawling across the floor. She propped her chin on the bed, looking at me through her tear-sodden eyes as reaching out to brush my face. “I won’t ever. He’s my everything. I’m so sorry, Robbie.”
I cried too, though I didn’t have much left, and feeling those tears was like I turned off the TV and I was in my own life again. I hurt all over, internal and external, and I had a fucking huge headache.
Painfully, I reached down and took Cattie’s hand as she sat next to me on the bed. She looked down at me in surprise, then gripped my fingers tight.
“Cass?” I whispered, barely above a breath. “I know. It just- it hurts.”
She broke down again, and I wiggled a little closer, pressing my forehead to hers as she cried into the sheets.
* * *